The Thoughts of a Conservative mind.

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama’s affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama’s interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.”

If that isn’t bad enough here is some more:

“In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia,” Obama wrote in “Dreams,” which he published in 1995. “At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature.”

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how “carefully” he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: “I am a Marxist.”

Also present at that meeting was Ayers’ wife, fellow terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, who once gave a speech extolling socialism, communism and “Marxism-Leninism.”

Obama has been widely criticized for choosing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American firebrand, as his pastor. Wright is a purveyor of black liberation theology, which analysts say is based in part on Marxist ideas.

You add all this up, Obama’s own words in his book, his associations that he admits he “careful chose” ,the tape from 2001 and Obama’s comment to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth” and you have a pretty strong case that Obama has beliefs as a Marxist/Socialist. Is this who we really want as our next President?

In other words, I am going to read what you write and watch what you say. Hopefully you will be fair and impartial as you told me you would be.

Thomas L. Rosenberg
Roetzel & Andress, LPA

Columbus, OH 43215

You got to love the veiled threat in the letter, but then again that has become the Obama campaigns tactic in response to their critics (as you can see here and here). And let us not forget what happens when an interviewer asks the campaign a tough question (as you can see here and here h/t Michelle Malkin).

It makes me wonder if this is the kind of thing that will be prevalent in an Obama Administration?

Michelle Malkin has the storyalong with links to the audio of Senator Obama on a Chicago Public radio program back in 2001 talking not only about redistribution of wealth, but also how we must “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution”. Here is the transcript of the Chicago Public radio show:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

So Senator Biden feels that Senator Obama would be tested. This once again shows Senator Biden’s lack of remembering recent history. Senator Obama has already been tested in an international crisis and he failed miserably.

This past August Russia invaded Georgia, whom the United States considers a Democratic ally, and had the following plan on how to deal with Russia:

The United States should call for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to condemn Russia’s decision in coordination with our European allies. The U.S. should lead within the UN and other international forums to cast a clear and unrelenting light on the decision, and to further isolate Russia internationally because of its actions.

For those of you who do not know Russia, as one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has a veto on the UN Security Council. In effect this means that any resolution condemning Russia’s invasion in the Security Council would be vetoed by Russia; therefore this is a waste of time and does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in the movie Team America where Hans Blix tells Kim Jong Il:

Hans Blix: I’m sorry, but the U.N. must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace or else.

Kim Jong Il: Or else what?

Hans Blix: Or else we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are.

Seeing that Senator Obama has already been tested and we have seen the results let me ask you this?

The Washington Times has an articlethat shows what could be an even more disturbing connection to Obama than Ayers (and this time Obama can’t claim well it happened when I was eight years old).

The connection is to Mr. Raila Odingo and this is what the article has to say about the connection:

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf.Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama’s six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies.In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. “The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials,” Mr. Obama announced.

“Kenyans are now yearning for change,” he declared. The intent of Mr. Obama’s remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans – he was firmly behind Mr. Odinga.

And here is a bit of background about Mr. Odinga:

About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.

The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.

By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama‘s father.

Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya’s Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.

Now we all know that Obama is going to Deny that he had any connection to Mr. Odinga, but here is some more info about their ties:

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama had met several times before the 2006 trip. Reports indicate Mr. Odinga visited Mr. Obama during trips to the U.S. in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Obama sent his foreign policy adviser Mark Lippert to Kenya in early 2006 to coordinate his summer visit. Mr. Obama’s August trip coincided with strategizing by Orange Democratic Movement leaders to defeat Mr. Kibaki in the upcoming elections. Mr. Odinga represented the ODM ticket in the presidential race.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama’s father were both from the Luo community, the second-largest tribe in Kenya, but their ties run much deeper. Mr. Odinga told a stunned BBC Radio interviewer the reason why he and Mr. Obama were staying in near daily telephone contact was because they were cousins. In a Jan. 8, 2008, interview, Mr. Odinga said Mr. Obama had called him twice the day before while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary before adding, “Barack Obama’s father is my maternal uncle.”

How long will it be till Obama says “This is not the Mr. Odinga I used to know”? Oh and let’s not forget this:

Mr. Obama’s judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties.

Will the rest of the MSM pick up on this story? I really doubt it. Newsbusters.org also has info on this story along with some video links of the rallies in Kenya.

In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois, Barack Obama was endorsed by an organization known as the Chicago “New Party”.The ‘New Party’ was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist ‘New Party’ was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations “fusion” reform platform as unconstitutional.

After allegations surfaced in early summer over the ‘New Party’s’ endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and ‘New Party’ then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA’s New Party.

On Tuesday, I discovered a web page that had been scrubbed from the New Party’s website. The web page which was published in October 1996, was an internet newsletter update on that years congressional races. Although the web page was deleted from the New Party’s website, the non-profit Internet Archive Organization had archived the page.

From the October 1996 Update of the DSA ‘New Party’:“New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races…

Finally back from vacation and once again all caught up at work (always the worst part of vacations is all the catching up you have to do), I figured it was about time I get back to blogging. I received the following email from Doug Kotrba, I know Doug from Vets for Dino. It is a great side by side comparison of both the Presidential Candidates (let’s face it the third party candidates don’t really stand a chance). Now I am no big fan of McCain, but when you compare it to what we would get out of an Obama Presidency it seems to be a no brainer (not to mention McCain’s VP pick in Sarah Palin has shown that he is willing to have a true proven Conservative on the ticket). So with out an further delay here is the comparison:

2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE COMPARISON TALKING POINTS

ISSUE

JOHN McCAIN

BARAK OBAMA

Favors new drilling offshore US

Yes

No (ed~So what is his plan for energy independence anyway)

Will appoint judges who interpret the law not make it (ed~can you say who gets to most likely pick Ruth Beta-Ginsberg’s replacement)

Yes

No

Served in the US Armed Forces

Yes (ed~had always called for more troops in Iraq and was right)

No (ed~still trying to claim the surge didn’t work…)

Amount of time served in the US Senate

22 YEARS

173 DAYS (ed~yet his campaign wanted to bring up lake of experience in Gov Palin…)

Will institute a socialized national health care plan(ed~can you say Canada eh?)

No

Yes

Supports abortion throughout the pregnancy (ed~yet the anti-war left wants to call our troops baby killers)

No

Yes

Would pull troops out of Iraq immediately (ed~can you say Vietnam/Cambodia all over again)

No

Yes

Supports gun ownership rights

Yes

No (ed~he wouldn’t want to be mistaken as a bitter middle American clinging to his gun now would he?)

Supports homosexual marriage

No

Yes

Proposed programs will mean a huge tax increase

No

Yes (ed~I am sure the Obamaesiah will just look at it as tithing not taxes)

Voted against making English the official language

No

Yes

Voted to give Social Security benefits to illegals

No

Yes

CAPITAL GAINS TAX

MCCAIN

0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax.

OBAMA

28% on profit from ALL home sales. (How does this affect you?If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.)

DIVIDEND TAX

MCCAIN

15% (no change)

OBAMA

39.6% –(How will this affect you?If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama becomes president. The experts predict that ‘Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market, yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.’)

INCOME TAX

MCCAIN

(no changes)

Single making 30K – tax $4,500
Single making 50K – tax $12,500
Single making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K – tax $18,750
Married making 125K – tax $31,250

OBAMA (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)

Single making 30K – tax $8,400
Single making 50K – tax $14,000
Single making 75K – tax $23,250
Married making 60K – tax $16,800
Married making 75K – tax $21,000
Married making 125K – tax $38,750
Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!

INHERITANCE TAX

MCCAIN

– 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)

OBAMA

Restore the inheritance tax

Many families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will only lose them to these taxes.

NEW TAXES PROPOSED BY OBAMA

New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet. New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren’t high enough already) New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity) New taxes on retirement accounts, and last but not least….New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!

HAVE CHILDREN ON ACTIVE DUTY IN THE MILITARY:

Obama: NO
Biden NO*

*Has a son in the Delaware National Guard (ed~I could not tell you if he has deployed or not and his son and Senator Biden should be, and I am sure our, very proud of his sevice)

With all the flip-flops by Obama I have come to start calling him the “Change”ling and figure that his message of “Hope and Change” is that he hopes no one will notice his change in positions be it months, weeks, days, or even hours.Take for example Obama’s back and forth yesterday on his comment about refining his Iraq decision:

Obama’s original plan (form his website) states, “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

Then in an earlier press conference on the 3rd of July Obama made this comment, “When I go to Iraq and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies,”

Yet later on the same day Obama said, “”We’re going to try this again. Apparently I wasn’t clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq. … I have said throughout this campaign that … I would bring our troops home at a pace of one to two brigades per month and at that pace we would have our combat troops out in 16 months. That position has not changed. I have not equivocated on that position. I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position.

Sounds to me like Obama is confused on where he stands on the issue and apparently so are some of his supporters.

Sen. Clair McCaskill told MSNBC Tuesday, “NO, No, he will not (change his Iraq Policy)…. Now is the time that we need to carefully and reasonably withdraw.”

Yet Obama’s foreign policy advisor Susan Rice told the same network on the same day that the 16-month plan was a :timetable”, not a deadline, and that Obama would listen to commanders to devise his Iraq strategy. (source FoxNews.com).

Sounds to me like Obama’s “Hope and Change” strategy is catching on.

With the discovery of the meaning of “Hope and Change” I thought I would share this post from Weapons of Mass Discussion on all of Obama’s “Changes” on the issue.I have listed just some of the top “changes” to Obama’s position here. Follow the link above to see the full list.

1. Special interests In January, the Obama campaign described union contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as “special interest” money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the representatives of “working people” and says he is “thrilled” by their support.

2. Illegal immigration In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked if the government should “crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.” He replied “Oppose.” In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised debate, he said that “we do have to crack down on those employers that are taking advantage of the situation.” (ed. To be fair McCain has also flip-flopped on this issue too).

3. Running for President or Vice President of the United States: On the January 22nd edition of “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert and Obama had the following exchange: Russert: “When we talked back in November of ‘04 after your election, I said, ‘There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?’” Obama: “I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.” Russert: “So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?” Obama: “I will not.”

4. Single-Payer Healthcare: On January 22nd, the Hillary Clinton Campaign releases a video that proves that Obama lied about his position on “single-payer healthcare.” The video compares statements Obama made during the January 21st Democratic debate with those he made to an AFL-CIO conference in June 2003 while campaigning for the Senate. Contradicting what Obama said at the debate, the old footage shows the senator saying, “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. That’s what I’d like to see.” At the debate, Obama stated: “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer (healthcare).”Single-payer healthcare is an euphemism for socialized medicine.

5. NAFTA: On February 29th, the Obama campaign told Canadian Television (CTV) that no message was passed to the Canadian government suggesting that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated. However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama’s senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago. Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue. On Thursday night, CTV spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters. CTV didn’t stop there. They announced that their sources, at the highest levels of the Canadian government,” reconfirmed the story to CTV and one of their primary sources provided a timeline of the discussion to CTV.

6. Donations from Lobbyists and Special Interest PACS: Obama say he doesn’t take money from DC lobbyists and special interest PACS. This is the type of double-talk “politics of the past” rhetoric Obama rails against. While his claim is technically true, what he does do is take money from state lobbyists and other big money contributors who have substantial lobbyist machines in DC, like law firms and corporations. In April 2007, the LA Times quoted the Campaign Finance Institute’s Stephen Weissman as pointing out that the distinction Obama makes on lobbyist money is meaningless: “He gets an asterisk that says he is trying to be different. … But overall, the same wealthy interests are funding his campaign as are funding other candidates, whether or not they are lobbyists.” The Capital Eye reported that “[a]ccording to the Center for Responsive Politics, 14 of Obama’s top 20 contributors employed lobbyists this year, spending a total of $16.2 million to influence the federal government in the first six months of 2007.”

7. Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Barack Obama repudiated what he called “inflammatory and appalling remarks” made by his Chicago pastor. Obama said he had not been present during the sermons in question. Obama told MSNBC, “Had I heard them in church I would have expressed that concern directly to Rev. Wright.” Please note, he says that he would have expressed concern, not repudiate, the words. (Source: Audacity of Hypocrisy) Previously Obama had said “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

8. Jerusalem: “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” Obama declared Wednesday, to rousing applause from the 7,000-plus attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference. But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama believes “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.

9. Meeting with Foreign Leaders: Obama Now Claims That He Will Only Meet With Foreign Leaders At A Time Of His Choosing If It Will Advance U.S. Interests, But Previously Said He Would Meet With Rogue Leaders His First Year In Office Without Preconditions

10.PAYGO: Obama promised to “restore a law that was in place during the Clinton presidency—called Paygo—that prohibits money from leaving the treasury without some way of compensating for the lost revenue.” but now Obama says he’s not going to sacrifice his domestic priorities for deficit reduction. Universal health care, renewable energy, and all he rest won’t be sacrificed on the altar of PAYGO.

11. FISA I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill.
Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.
The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.
No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people – not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.That is why I am co-sponsoring Senator Dodd’s amendment to remove the immunity provision. Secrecy must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens – and set an example to the world – that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient.

This week, after the FISA compromise keeping telecom immunity, Barry says: But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people.

The list goes on and on, the only question is will the MSM and voters take notice before November?

In response to this Rudy Giuliani comment, “Democrats want to go back to a pre-Sept. 11 view of terrorism – what I call being on defense. They want to treat it mostly as a criminal justice matter, use grand juries’ investigations,” Giuliani told FOX News Wednesday. “I would just describe it and just say this is not a realistic approach. Time has proved that being on offense is better than being on defense.”, Sen. Biden had the following to say:

“It’s no surprise that it takes a man with zero national security and foreign policy experience to defend the policies of John McCain and President Bush.”

That is really funny when you consider the lack of any national security or foreign policy experience the presumptive Democrat nominee Freshman Sen. Obama has. Of course the MSM has not called Sen. Biden on this as of yet (and I am not holding my breath).

So what is the Freshman Senator’s plan for foreign policy? Let’s take a look at what Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House has to say about this:

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

Well I guess that could work if we are ever facing a radicalized group of Heffalumps or Wuzzels.